On Sat, 9 Jan 1999, dave vanhorn wrote:

> At 11:01 AM 1/9/99 -0700, Gabriel Gonzalez wrote:
> >>If you have to stick with resistors, go as large as you can. The thing is,
> >>you can never say how large a whack you're going to have to take.. I made a
> >>home-made ESD tester a while back that might (with the help of a scope) get
> >
> >
> >How can I get this tester, or info on building one?
>
> Well, I can talk you through it. The hardest thing to come by is the high
> voltage supply, it's called use what you can get. You want DC, anything
> from 6kV or so on up is good. I used 15kV because it's what I had handy.
>
> The baseplate is just a 1 x 2 foot copper clad PCB, both sides tied to
> ground.
> Add whatever you need to control the output of your high voltage supply.
> Mine I control by turning down the input voltage, it's actually very linear
> WRT the output.
>
> I'll measure the cap for you, that will need to me made from 0.062
> fiberglass G-10 PCB, in order to duplicate my cap here. or if you know your
> material, (or have a C meter) you can trim it to 200pF yourself. The
> thickness sets the max voltage, since it will arc over.
>
> Find a nice high voltage resistor, 20+ megs, and it should be about 2-6
> inches long to survive the high voltage.
>
> We can do more in direct email, but this should be enough of a scavenger
> hunt for this weekend anyway :)

Oh, what is wrong with a small air ionizer as HV supply ? I use one built
from a kit, gives 15 kV from 12V @ 120 mA and survives output shorts. One
transistor and a mini tesla coil go pretty far ;)

hope this helps,

        Peter